One of the things I enjoy the most about writing a historical novel set in Regency England is researching the fascinating places that my characters might have visited. Jericho's Child: A Cozy Regency Romancewas no exception, and I was so happy when my characters decided to end a hard morning of shopping with a visit to Gunter's Tea Shop. If you'd like to take a break, too, please join us for a cup of tea!Gunter's was located at Nos. 7-8 Berkeley Square, in fashionable Mayfair. So you don't get lost, here's a map:

And here's how the Berkeley Square would have looked at the time Jericho's Child takes place:

Wikipedia has this to say about the famous tea shop: "[It] had its origins in a food business named "Pot and Pine Apple" started in 1757 by Italian Domenico Negri. Various English, French and Italian wet and dry sweetmeats were made and sold from the business. "In 1777 James Gunter became Negri’s business partner, and by 1799 he was the sole proprietor. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries Gunter's became a fashionable light eatery in Mayfair, notable for its ices and sorbets. In 1815, James sent his son Robert (1783–1852) to study the confectionary trade in Paris. Robert assumed sole control of the business following his father's death in 1819, and took on his cousin John as a partner in 1837."

Gunter's was famous for its ices - and the flavors were often creative. For instance this photo of Regency-inspired ices features Bergamont and Punch (front); Royal Cream, Chocolate, Burnt Filbert, and Parmesan (back).

French ladies at a Paris confectioner

At theheight of its popularity, anyone who was anyone went to Gunter's for a sweet treat. In fact, as this entry from the Encyclopedia of London tells us:"A custom grew up that the ices were eaten, not in the shop, but in the Square itself; ladies would remain in their carriages under the trees, their escorts leaning against the railings near them, while the waiters dodged across the road with their orders. For many years, when it was considered not done for a lady to be seen alone with a gentleman at a place of refreshment in the afternoon, it was perfectly respectable for them to be seen at Gunter’s Tea Shop." The weather was too chilly for my heroine, Sophie Moore, to eat ices outside, but as a newcomer to London, she certainly did enjoy this glimpse into the tony side of Regency life.

If you'd like to taste a Regency ice, here's a recipe from 1826 for Strawberry Ice Cream. You can find the recipe in William Jarrin's book The Italian Confectioner. Jarrin, who was born in Italy, came to England in 1817 and he worked at Gunter's for a few years. He was also the author of The Epicure's Almanack (1820).

William Gunter, another of James's sons, also wrote a "cookbook," the lighthearted Gunter’s Confectioner’s Oracle, published in 1830. He supposedly "told all," but in his alphabetical dictionary of raw materials, he "skipped B because it ‘is to us an empty letter.’ C was a fourteen-page treatise on coffee, in French … The dictionary skipped D and E. The letter F was for flour. Then Gunter wrote, ‘I now skip a number of useless letters until I arrive at P.” – Of Sugars and Snow: A history of ice-cream making, Jeri Quinzio, University of California Press, 2009, p. 65.

Alas, Gunter's Tea Shop no longer exists. But you can pay a virtual visit to the tea shop in my Cozy Regency Romance Jericho's Child.It's available as both an ebook and paperback at Amazon.com.